Label printing apparatus which print on label material such as discrete or die cut labels or on a continuous supply of tape are known. The known label printing apparatus is arranged to receive various different widths of label material.
Label printing apparatuses which use label material in the form of rolls are known. These rolls are of varying width and diameter. The label material is wound on a core. The rolls of label material are manually loaded onto a spool and placed in the printer. The labels are manually fed into the print location. Thus loading and unloading of the label material into and out of the label printing apparatus requires the user to manually interact with the label printing apparatus and perform several steps manually to ensure that the label material is correctly oriented in the label printing apparatus.
Label printing apparatuses with a supply of label material provided on a disposable roll holder are also known. The roll holder, with the supply of label material is manually guided to a specific location in the label printing apparatus to ensure that the label material is properly positioned. The label material is manually fed into or placed through the printing region.
There have been proposed various mechanism for identifying the type of label material in the label printing apparatus ranging from manually inputting this information to various automatic detection schemes.
There is a problem with the current label printing apparatus in that it is time consuming, difficult and frustrating for a user to change the label material and ensure that a new supply of label material is correctly positioned. This is a particular problem if the supply of label material needs to be changed frequently. The supply of label material may be changed if it has run out or a user wants to print on a different type of label material. However, the inventors have realized that this is not straight forward.
Dealing with the label material in the cassette is a problem. For example, for effective printing, the inventors have realized that the label material should not be compromised when the cassette is handled by the user.
It is an aim of some embodiments of the invention to address one or more of the problems mentioned previously.